Had a great time on the gulf with Capt. Peterson. It was my first time on the gulf for me and the first deep sea trip for my son.
Originally scheduled for 2pm, the trip was moved to 10am. Capt. Peterson contacted the day before to suggest an earlier time b/c the 2pm forecast was for rough seas - definitely not ideal conditions for a kid new to the ocean. The reschedule put us out there in perfect weather. It was a little rough going out, but calm for miles when we hit the fishing ground and smooth on the way back. Oh, and that boat can fly when he opens her up.
Once we got lines in the water, current was killing us when simply bottom fishing, so the captain explained to me to how to flat line, and we started pulling them in, left and right. The switch to lighter tackle and letting the lines float out slowly made it feel like real fishing. Rather than just pulling and reeling straight up from the bottom, Capt. Peterson showed me how to work the line with some finesse while flatlining, and we started hauling in big reds. My kid kept bottom fishing, and once he got the hang of it, he started pulling them into the boat until he tired out. Had me beat by 3-4 fish for a while until I got the hang of the flatline.
In the end, we caught a mess of snapper and kept our limits. Had some big fish on lines running out, and while we fought them well, we lost them to the sea. On one runner that pulled about 300 yards out, the captain asked if I wanted to pull up and chase her with the boat. Pretty cool that he’d be willing to run around and pull up stakes just to give us a wild experience. Sadly, whatever it was running line like crazy, it broke free before we could get up and give chase. Capt. Pete would have let us run all day chasing it. He’s the type of captain who let you spend your day as you want and try to get you an experience you’ve never before had.
It was a quick run in and he had his fishmonger on the dock waiting for us. We were cut and cleaned in minutes.
Overall, great experience. One more important note, we had boats all around us when we started, but no one was catching anything. Eventually, we were the last boat out b/c we were the only one reeling in fish. That’s a testament to Capt. Peterson’s know-how and patience.
Had a great time on the gulf with Capt. Peterson. It was my first time on the gulf for me and the first deep sea trip...
Captain replied
We had a very fun day on the water, it looked like a nature show with all of the things we saw. We had a Barracuda on that was jumping all over the place. Also had amberjacks out their that day. The Goliath groupers and sharks were thick. I must have retied rigs 30+ times. Their are absolute monsters on that reef. Also had a huge king or barracuda nearly cut a large Spanish makeral in two at the boat. We fed the heck out of the monsters of the deep, they beat us to some very nice fish that day.... More